Question

I have a PHP script that allows users to change the language that my site is displayed in. My script looks at their browser language and if the site is available in their language, it displays it but if it is not available in their default language it displays it in English. Also, if they choose to set their language using our cookies, the script checks to see that the language defined by the cookie is also available.

However, this script currently looks a bit long winded to me. Is there any way I can simplify it whilst keeping the same functionality?

$u=substr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'],0,2);
if(in_array($u,array('de','es','fr','ja','nl','pt','zh'))){
$l=$u;
}else{
$l='en';
}

if(isset($_COOKIE['language'])){
if(in_array($_COOKIE['language'],array('de','en','es','fr','ja','nl','pt','zh'))){
$l=$_COOKIE['language'];
}
}

I hope people can understand what I’m trying to describe.

Answer 1

How about this?

$u = isset($_COOKIE['language']) ? $_COOKIE['language'] : substr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'], 0, 2);

if (in_array($u, array('de','es','fr','ja','nl','pt','zh'))) {
  $l = $u;
} else {
  $l = 'en';
}

By the way, it might be useful to have the array containing your allowed languages in a “config” file (a file that will be always included), for easier editing.

[Edit]
Decided to do this little late, but in case you want it to be in one line:

$l = in_array(($u = isset($_COOKIE['language']) ? $_COOKIE['language'] : substr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'], 0, 2)), array('de','es','fr','ja','nl','pt','zh')) ? $u : 'en';